Unified Korea between U.S. and China:Its Strategic Choices for the Future

Abstract

Even if a unified Korea emerges as a potential major economic and military power with a combined population of 80-million, it will have to deal with U.S.-China strategic competition that goes beyond the Korean peninsula. The United States will make efforts to persuade a unified Korea to maintain its military alliance for broader strategic purposes, and China will try to bring Korea onto China’s side by offering incentives such as investment and financial support for the reconstruction of the Northern part of a unified Korea. Considering that a unified Korea will need help from both the U.S. and China in order to stabilize former North Korean territory and build essential industrial infrastructure there, unified Korea’s realistic policy would be to encourage both great powers to accept unified Korea’s unique status in an effort to resolve or mitigate differences between neighboring powers while not strongly aligning itself with either major power. Rather than providing the line of defense for either of the great powers, a unified Korea will need to maintain a loose alliance relationship with the U.S. while actively pursuing cooperation with China in all aspects aside from conventional military security.